1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid ejecting apparatus.
2. Related Art
An ink jet-type image forming apparatus, which discharges ink (a kind of liquid) from a head and forms an image, is known as a liquid ejecting apparatus from the related art. In the ink jet-type image forming apparatus, there is a case in which a pigment component of ink settles down in an ink supply path that supplies the ink from an ink tank in which the ink is stored toward the head (hereinafter, there is a case in which the sedimentation of the pigment component of the ink is simply called “sedimentation of the ink”). For example, white ink has a white pigment component which is included in the ink and easily settles down, and thus the white ink is a typical example of sedimentary ink. When ink settles down, the concentration of an output image is deviated from an intended concentration, and thus a problem occurs in that image quality is lowered. In order to solve the problem, for example, JP-A-2012-152972 proposes a method of stirring ink by circulating the ink using a pump.
However, in the ink jet-type image forming apparatus, an ink supply path includes a considerably long section which extends in the horizontal direction (hereinafter, referred to as a horizontal part). More specifically, in a large printer capable of performing large paper printing, there are a large number of extremely long horizontal parts.
Since sedimentation of the ink occurs in such a horizontal part, it is necessary to stir the ink in the horizontal part. However, in the handling method of circulating the ink using a pump disclosed in JP-A-2012-152972, when the horizontal part is long, it takes considerable time until the concentration of the ink is actually uniform (in other words, the ink is homogenized), and thus it is inefficient. The problem is particularly severe in a large printer which includes an extremely long horizontal part.